US President Donald Trump has blamed immigration for unrest and protests in France, while urging the French nation to tighten its migration rules.
“France is burning!” Trump wrote, accusing immigrants from vastly different cultural backgrounds of contributing to the country’s decline.
“The immigration of people from an entirely different world, people with hatred in their hearts, has shattered that once great country,” he continued
Trump urged French authorities to act immediately, writing, “Close your Borders and take control, before it is too late!”
His remarks followed one of France’s most violent days of unrest in recent years, as protests continued for days and descended into rioting, with government buildings set ablaze, stores looted and protesters clashing with police, piling pressure on President Emmanuel Macron six months before elections to replace him.
In the central French city of Limoges, a fire engulfed the 143-year-old city hall on Saturday, with footage showing the building’s spire collapsing, CNN reported Sunday, and in Marseille, masked individuals dressed in black forced their way into city hall and vandalized the property.
In another incident, CNN reported the city’s tourist office was set on fire in Lyon as violence spread through the streets.
The protest movement began last month among high school students in Paris’s economically disadvantaged northern suburbs, where frustration over teacher shortages and deteriorating school facilities developed into a broader campaign against inequality, rising living costs and declining public services.
Although most demonstrators protested peacefully, smaller groups engaged in violent confrontations with police, vandalized public buildings and looted stores, including luxury boutiques and supermarkets.
French authorities reported attacks targeting police officers, media personnel and government property in several cities, as security forces struggled to contain the violence.
French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu condemned the destruction and said the government would not be “intimidated” by those responsible. He blamed the violence on the “ultra-left” and criminals, warning against attempts to exploit the unrest for political purposes ahead of next year’s presidential election.
“To those who clearly want to use this violence as a ‘warm-up’ before the presidential election, I say clearly: We will not let ourselves be intimidated. No one will impose their political agenda through violence,” he wrote in a post on X/Twitter.